LinuxPlanet: Editor's Note: Where Doesn't Tux Want to Go Today -- Linux in the Service of the
Monopoly-Minded

WEBINAR:On-Demand

"AOL, as we are all aware, wants very badly to merge with Time
Warner. At issue with regulators, though, is the tiny question of
the bandwidth the merged titan would command and who gets access to
it. The prospective partners are, of course, happy to share their
pipe with anybody but set-top device providers. Why? Because the
wisdom rampant in the computing world has it that the PC is on the
slow path to obsolescence via special-purpose devices. The Internet
made the PC market, so, the thinking goes, the Internet will unmake
it when connectivity becomes the province of convenient,
easy-to-use, no-maintenance appliances."

"In other words, AOL and Time Warner are investing in their
future by attempting to deny access to the bandwidth ISPs will need
to make their operations viable once they make the (anticipated)
jump from servicing PC users to servicing appliance users. And
Linux plays, in its own way, a prominent part in their plans: it's
giving them the cheap, embedded OS they need to crank out the boxes
to meet the demand to be generated when the great set-top migration
begins. Considering the schizophrenic relationship the Linux
community enjoys with AOL thanks to its healthy population of
Internet veterans who look back on September of 1993 with sorrow,
this can probably be filed under 'one of life's small
ironies.'"

"It's also a reminder of why the embedded space matters, even if
to the average desktop Linux user it seems like an area of
computing that won't touch them meaningfully. After all, the OS a
sealed box is running doesn't seem to matter much. The inability of
Microsoft, for instance, to earn much market share with WinCE or
PocketPC, is taken as an indication by many that users don't expect
their handheld's OS to be in lockstep with their desktop's as long
as they can synch their calendars and address books."

"AOL's move, though, represents the use of Linux in an
anti-competitive pre-emptive strike. If Microsoft attempted this,
we'd be shaking the rafters with our protests even if our immediate
interests as Linux users weren't directly affected, because the
core values of the community include a sense of fairness and
concern for maximizing the freedom of end users to choose the best
solution. Most of us accept that Linux (and Free Software in
general) can and will be used to make a buck. How many of us accept
that it can be used in a run on monopolizing the public's
experience of the Internet?"